


tomorrow will dawn the same as today

by hudders-and-hiddles (huddersandhiddles)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Episode: s03e02 The Sign of Three, Groundhog Day AU, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pining Sherlock, Stag Nights & Bachelor Parties, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-08-15 19:38:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8070091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huddersandhiddles/pseuds/hudders-and-hiddles
Summary: Sherlock wakes up on a grey London morning, alone. Tomorrow he'll do the same. Whatever he does, wherever he goes, however his night might end, tomorrow he'll do the same.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's a Groundhog Day AU of the stag night!
> 
> This fic came about because of my obsession with the stag night--what happened, what we didn't see happen, what could have happened instead. I wanted to write every iteration of it that I could, and then this idea presented itself as a tidy way to wrap all those different versions up in one complete story. You definitely do not have to have seen Groundhog Day to make sense of this fic, as I've mostly only taken the premise and a few general plot points from the film. 
> 
> This is still very much a work in progress, and I make zero promises on how frequently I will be able to update. But this is something I have really wanted to write and have been working on for quite a while now, so I'm going to try my best to focus on getting it done sooner rather than later. The tags will update as we go along, so be sure to check those just in case.
> 
> To that end, let me also make a quick note about the mildly dubious consent tag. I've added it in part because there is alcohol involved, as it is the stag night. However, Sherlock is also repeating the day over and over, learning new things as he goes, while the day is always new to John, and that inherently tips the balance of power in Sherlock's favour, in that he will know things John won't. I do think that affects consent to some degree, and I thought it best to at least include some kind of warning here so as not to trigger anyone. All that being said, I can assure you that John and Sherlock both will be enthusiastically agreeing to any and all of the sex that they do have anywhere in this fic. And if you have questions about this or any other potential triggers in this fic, please feel free to shoot me an ask [over on tumblr](http://hudders-and-hiddles.tumblr.com/ask) (preferably off of anon so that I can answer it privately).
> 
> Finally, thanks to Darcy for betaing, for helping me talk through my problem spots and yelling at me to write when I've tried to slack off, and for being my biggest cheerleader when I've so desperately needed one. <3 <3 <3

The sun rises over London, its fingers pale through the morning fog, stretching toward Baker Street. Sherlock slips into awareness, the light seeping in around the fringes of the darkness, a cool silver-blue rimming the edges of night. He blinks and stretches, and the world takes shape around him, swirls of color resolving themselves into solid skeletons of wall and window and wardrobe. The morning light streams in somber grey, dappling the sheets next to his sprawled form, the empty space around which his life has curled.

Shifting to his side and burying his head in his pillow once more, he tries to chase the light away and fall back into sleep, to let the heaviness behind his eyes pull him down to somewhere deep and dreamless, but when his mobile pings with an incoming text, the last threads of unconsciousness slide from his grasp and he gives up sleep with a heavy sigh.

His hand fumbling for the phone on the nightstand, he readies the words to tell Lestrade to piss off if whatever case he has today is any less than a nine. But when his eyes peel open and he squints at the screen, his brain slowly coming online to register the words written there, his mouth slips into a smile, small and soft and a little sad.

John.

_Didn’t stay up too late did you?_

The words on the screen and the thought of their sender fill Sherlock with a hope he quickly extinguishes with practiced ease, though the small pleasure of it still lingers rosy and warm around his edges. The words are ones John has asked him time and time again, and he stares at them until the screen goes black, brushing his thumb once across the space where they disappeared before tucking the phone against his bare chest and losing himself in his thoughts.

In his worst fears, he would have woken up this morning after the stag night and known it was the beginning of the end, the not-so-distant chime of wedding bells tolling a death knell for him and John. It’s the stereotypical pattern; one last drunken hurrah together, and then the friendship falls apart in the face of the marriage, crushed under the weight of dinner parties and deliberation about sofa patterns or whatever other boring things husbands and wives do in all their spare time. _I can’t today_ would have become _I can’t this week_ and eventually _I’ll call you when I’m free_ , and the phone would never ring, and Sherlock would drift back into the solitary existence he had lived before John came into this life, a life far less tolerable when fitted around the John-shaped hole in it.

In his wildest dreams, he would have woken up this morning with John in his arms, the stag night serving to give Sherlock the courage to make his desires known, and to somehow ignite the spark that he sometimes tricks himself into seeing in John’s eyes, fanning it into flames of lust and longing and maybe, somehow, love. This morning would be the start of their renewed life together. Mary gone, vanished from their lives as easily as she’d appeared. John back home, tucked under the covers, nuzzling his nose into Sherlock’s neck in his effort to scoot closer. Mrs Hudson tutting at their clothes left strewn about the flat but not managing to stifle her smile when she sees the closed door to their bedroom as she drops off the morning tea.

But neither fantasy nor fear has come to pass, the morning instead falling somewhere in between. Somewhere careful and calm. Somewhere that feels like normalcy. Instead of being wrapped up in Sherlock’s sheets, messy-haired and sleepy-eyed, John is at home with his soon-to-be-wife. Instead of lonely, growing silence, there’s a friendly _good morning_. It’s far from the best outcome, but it isn’t the worst.

And that, Sherlock supposes, is the best he can realistically hope for.

 

*****

 

Bundled into his favorite pyjamas and dressing gown, Sherlock occupies himself about the flat, hoping that busy hands will lead to a busy mind. He clears out the refrigerator--despite what certain former flatmates think, he does do that from time to time--removing all the barely-eaten takeaway and the expired milk and the leftover experiments and leaving behind little but a single egg and the four beers that John left there weeks ago.

He plays for a while. Bach and Strauss and a bit of Vivaldi, studiously avoiding his own compositions, not wanting to fall into the memories and the loss and the solitary subject of which they all speak. He starts to write up the notes of his latest case but stops when his words begin to paint the picture of deft doctor’s hands examining wet, naked skin, deciding that perhaps he doesn’t need notes on this one after all--it’s not as if he’d managed to solve it anyway.

Eventually, he settles in at the table to further examine a few strands of Peruvian vicuña wool, content to absorb himself in his continuing study of the fibers and their lack of connection to the man who usually fills all the space in Sherlock’s head.

When he reaches for his notebook some time later to record his observations, he bumps against a pot of tea that has appeared at his elbow. Little swirls of steam shimmer in the air above it, and he lets it curl around his fingers before he reaches for a cup. The homemade biscuits Mrs Hudson has left alongside it are oversweet, and he nibbles gingerly at one, sending a silent word of thanks her way, grateful to still have someone who cares about things like how he likes his biscuits.

For a while, that had been John. John who knew exactly how Sherlock took his tea. John who was perfectly comfortable with Sherlock’s silences. John whose arrival in Sherlock’s life had brought him so many things he hadn’t even known he was missing, shining a spotlight bright and uncomfortable on his loneliness until Sherlock was forced to fill the aching void of it with laughter and adventure and dinner for two.

But now. Now John knows how Mary takes her tea. He’s comfortable with her endless streams of chatter. He’s not entirely gone from Sherlock’s life but removed far enough to be a distant pinprick of light, a star hot and bright and beautiful but separated by the vast, cold distance of the space that had opened between them when Sherlock had left.

But still, despite all that had happened, John had asked Sherlock to be his best man, a responsibility he had accepted with the gravity of a man asked to plan his own impending funeral. He’d helped with flowers and cakes and color schemes and seating charts, pinning all the pieces of the planning process to his wall, a crime scene map of the shattered fragments of his own broken heart.

Throughout it all, John had left the work to Mary and Sherlock, taking little interest in whether the bridesmaids wore taffeta or chiffon or whether the invitations were printed on ecru or ivory or white stationery. He’d offered suggestions when asked, but otherwise he’d seemed content to let others handle the details, even when it came to his own stag night. He’d offered little guidance, and Sherlock had been left guessing at what he should do.

Low-key seemed more John’s style, rather than some of the raucous affairs Sherlock knew sometimes took place. There had been questions of where to go and whom to invite, and in the end Sherlock had chosen what he thought John would like best, coloured perhaps by a bit of his own wishful thinking. Just the two of them. So much like it used to be that throughout the night the memory of it, of them, clenched a tight fist around his heart until he had to wriggle and choke down a shaking breath to ease the discomfort of it.

And while it hadn’t been everything he had secretly hoped it would be, he had at least tried to make sure it was what he thought John wanted. It had certainly started well. They had gone to the pubs. They’d drunk beers and had a few laughs. It had all been very pleasant and chummy and fine.

They had both gotten far more inebriated than they should have, however--likely Molly miscalculated, possibly on purpose thinking it would be amusing--and Sherlock is less clear on exactly how the evening ended. He remembers Baker Street. The stairs. Mrs Hudson. His chair. But everything beyond that is a blur. He would be hard pressed to even decide when he and John had parted ways, though at some point he obviously must have tucked John away in a cab to totter off home to Mary.

The thought upsets him, that he spent an entire evening in John’s sole presence--a rare occurrence these days to be sure--and there are portions of it missing from his memory. He doesn’t know everything they said, everything they did, on what terms they parted. He can only hope that, despite his silent wish for how the evening would go, his inebriation hadn’t made him brave in all the wrong ways.

But then John had texted him this morning, not bitter or angry or troubled, so however the evening had ended, it couldn’t have been too awful. Or perhaps John has as little memory of that portion of the night as Sherlock does.

Whatever happened, after having drunk far too much, Sherlock is thankful to be somehow blissfully hangover free, to have John still talking to him this morning, to have life continuing on as normally as can be expected. So he counts the night a success, assuming that whatever else occurred, it all must have been good enough to meet John’s expectations for the evening, which is all that really matters. It's all that ever has.

What comes next though, Sherlock has no idea. While it already isn’t as he feared, it isn’t certain either. John is texting him now, but for how long? In the months since he’s returned, the two of them have gone on cases together, yes, but far fewer than before he had left. After the wedding, will John still come when Sherlock calls? Or will date nights take precedence over danger, their cases together dwindling away to nothing at all?

What about the rest of the time? Together with Mary, they’ve spent a fair few days and nights and weekends together planning the wedding, too, but what happens to those when the wedding’s over? Do those moments go back to being his and John’s alone? Poring through the paper for interesting cases, laughing at whatever inane movie John decides they should watch. Or are those times now to be forever shared amongst the three of them? Continuing on as they have been these months, replacing wedding planning with Sunday dinners and board games and whatever other tedious activities Mary decides they should try, Sherlock always feeling like the unwelcome third wheel, even in his own flat.

Or is their time together coming to an end entirely? All those hours now belonging solely to the newlyweds, locked up together at home in comfortable domestic bliss, John happy with his new life and Sherlock forgotten. Avoided. Discarded.

His tea gone cold, he puts down the cup and his half-eaten biscuit and turns back to the microscope with a sigh. Whatever will come will come, and there’s little else to do for now but wait. He can lose himself in his work. He can try to find solace again in science and in silence. He can carry on as he always has or as close to it as he can manage anymore. And in two more weeks, John will be married, and Sherlock will see what his fate is to be.

 

*****

 

Hours later, his mobile pings with an incoming text, and Sherlock finally rouses himself from the table, his knees and ankles popping as he stands for the first time in hours, and goes to the bedroom to retrieve it. There are two messages--he must have missed the first when it arrived--both from John.

_Where are you? Running late?_

_Where the fuck are you, Sherlock?_

The smile that had begun to form on his face slips toward confusion.

_Home. Why? What’s wrong?_

He waits, puzzled, until the text alert chimes again.

_What’s wrong? You were supposed_ _  
_ _to be here forty minutes ago._

Sherlock glances at the time on John’s message--19:43--and can’t think of anywhere he was supposed to have been at all tonight. Had he and John perhaps made plans last night, somewhere in that long stretch of blackness he can’t recall? He tries to remember, to pull anything from the darkness, but there’s nothing solid there to which he can grab hold.

Before he can determine how to reply, another message arrives.

_I don’t appreciate being forgotten_  
_on my own fucking stag night. You_  
_promised me you had something_ _  
planned. You swore you did._

Sherlock tilts his head in bewilderment, and he reads the message again. The words are all clear in their individual meanings but the whole of it makes no more sense than it had the first time, so he reads it once more, trying to find some interpretation of the words that will make their truth clear. But when he reads it a fourth, a fifth, a sixth time and the message still doesn’t resolve itself into something he can understand, Sherlock finally has to assume that John is the one who is confused. Perhaps he had had far more to drink last night than Sherlock realised and remembers even less than Sherlock does.

_That was last night._

He waits, unsure of what else to do. From what Sherlock remembers, John hadn’t seemed drunk enough to cause memory loss for the entire evening. Perhaps someone had slipped something into John’s or even both of their drinks?

Another message arrives.

_No. It’s tonight. The third._

But that’s not right. Today is the fourth. Sherlock goes to correct him, his fingers sliding into position to type his response, when he catches sight of the date on his mobile and all the breath rushes from his chest.

3 May 2014

His knees wobble out from under him, and he sinks into his mattress under the weight of his confusion. _How is that possible? Yesterday was the third. Not today._ He’s certain it was yesterday.

Perhaps it’s an error, a glitch in the phone’s operating system. He thumbs the power button and taps impatient fingers against the screen as he waits for his mobile to restart, trying to ignore the corner of his mind that echoes with whispers of John’s messages, of John’s certainty about their plans for tonight. Before the screen even lights up again, Sherlock is back on his feet, moving through the flat to find his laptop, still open on the desk. Shoving his stacks of case notes out of the way and on to the floor, he pulls up the browser and opens the websites of several daily newspapers, his leg rattling against the edge of the desk as he waits for them to load.

A new text alert chimes as his phone finishes restarting.

_Are you using?_

His frantic nerves jangle to a halt, his body and his mind going still under the cold weight of those words.

It always comes back to this. No matter how many times he tries to prove himself trustworthy, no matter how many crises he survives clear-headed and clean, no matter how many times he’s felt the itch in the crook of his arm but shoved the need to scratch it down down down until he can think again, it always comes back to this. Though he knows the question isn’t unwarranted, it hurts that John thinks he has to ask.

_No. I assure you I’m quite sober._

He closes the message and looks at the date again, this time with far less mania and far more wary reluctance.

3 May 2014

He checks the newspaper sites, and all of them show yesterday’s news. Just for good measure, he crosses the flat and calls down the stairs, unable to control the way his voice shakes, “Mrs Hudson, what day is it?” though he already knows what the answer will be.

The volume of her radio decreases, Shirley Bassey’s voice growing quieter, as she yells back, “It’s Saturday, dear!” After a pause, she adds, “Are you alright?”

_No_ , he wants to say.

_John is angry with me,_ he could say back.

_He thinks I’m high. He thinks I’ve forgotten him. He thinks I’ve let him down yet again. But I didn’t… I’m not… I don’t understand. What’s happening? It doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes sense._

What he says instead is, “Fine,” and closes the sitting room door with a soft snap.

His mobile chimes in his hand, and he sighs, taking a moment to summon his courage before he looks at the message.

_Ok. Are you planning on actually_ _  
_ _joining me still?_

Sherlock’s heart beats faster as he reads the message a second time. John still wants him there. John believes him. That’s good. That’s very good. Whatever it is that’s happening, he can meet John, and they can figure it out together. That’s what they do after all--they figure out the seemingly impossible.

His reply is already written, _Yes, I’m on my way now_ , before he looks down and realises he’s still in his pyjamas, unshowered and unshaven, and sends a different message instead.

_Let me get dressed. I can meet you_ _  
_ _there in an hour._

His dressing gown is discarded as he hurries back to his room, dropped on a kitchen chair before he tugs his threadbare shirt over his head and throws it toward the hamper in the corner of the bedroom. When his pyjama bottoms and pants have joined it, his text alert sounds twice in quick succession, and he snatches his phone from where he dropped it on the bed as he disrobed.

_You’re not even dressed?_

_Jesus, Sherlock. You know what,_ _  
_ _don’t bother._

Sherlock collapses on to the bed as if he’s been punched in the stomach, the speed with which his evening keeps changing directions nauseating him.

_No, I’m coming. I didn’t forget, I_ _  
_ _swear to you._

He contemplates how much he should say, if he should tell John what seems to be happening now or wait until he sees him in person. _A hint of it at least can’t hurt, right? Can’t make things worse?_

_There’s something unusual_  
_happening. I don’t quite understand_ _  
_ _it. That’s why I’m late. I didn’t forget._

He closes his eyes, swallowing against the fear roiling syrupy and black in his belly, and waits for John’s reply.

Again, his mobile pings twice, one right after the other, and Sherlock’s hand shakes as he turns the screen toward him.

_Of course. A case. I should have_ _  
_ _known better._

_I’m going home. Enjoy your case._

His fingers tap out his response before he even thinks about it, his desperation to stop John from leaving, to put an end to the disappointment he can feel seeping from those words, making him rash.

_Don’t. Please. I need you. Please_ _  
_ _don’t go._

He regrets the message as soon as he realises he’s sent it. It’s too desperate, too whinging, too wretched, too broken.

Too close to the truth.

The wait for John’s response is interminable, and Sherlock begins to shake under the press of his anxiety, gooseflesh raising across the cool, bare skin on his arms and back and calves. The sun slips deeper on the horizon, and the shadows in the room grow longer with every passing minute, slowly dissipating into the gathering darkness.

The room is nearly black before Sherlock admits no response is coming, and he crumbles under his disappointment, curling onto his side, too numb to even pull the duvet over himself. This is his fault, somehow. He isn’t sure exactly how, but it’s the most logical conclusion. Just another in the long line of ways he’s failed John. Perhaps he dreamt of the stag night last night, imagining he and John drinking and laughing and generally content in each other’s company.

_But it felt real_ , he tells himself. The memories of the evening are imprinted on his skin like tender bruises; if he prods at them, he can still feel the liquid pulse of the music and the crushing press of a dance floor, the squeeze of John’s arms around his chest and the soft hitch of his breath on the back of Sherlock’s neck, the helium lift of a smile aimed his way and the bittersweet burn of a half-remembered touch that seemed laced with something Sherlock can’t quite name.

How could that have been a dream when Sherlock can still feel the ghost of John’s hand on his skin? Those phantom fingers, warm and reassuring, squeeze his shoulder in a way that soothes his fears just a little.

It’s only when they gently shake him that he realises they are far less ephemeral than he thought, and he blinks up at the shadow of a figure hovering over him, blocking out the feeble light coming from the hallway.

“John?” he asks, ashamed of the way the name comes out small and unsteady.

“Yeah,” comes the response, tired and wary and concerned, but wrapped in a familiar softness Sherlock still can never quite believe is actually aimed his way. “It’s me.” The hand on Sherlock’s shoulder disappears but is replaced by the warmth of his duvet being pulled across his body. “You okay? You’re trembling.”

Only then does Sherlock remember that he’s nude, though it’s too late to do anything about it now. He shrugs his shoulders up a fraction of an inch under the covers and manages to steady his voice before he responds. “I’m not sure.”

“Are you ill?” John asks, pressing a gentle hand to his forehead.

“I don’t-- I don’t think so.”

“You don’t seem to have a fever at least,” John says, his hand falling back to his side. “No injuries? No pain anywhere?”

Sherlock shakes his head no.

“Eaten anything funny? Drunk anything toxic? Taken anything at all?”

He ignores the bubble of hurt that wells up in his chest at being asked again if he’s high. “No. Nothing.”

John sighs. “Sherlock, have you had anything at all to eat today?”

He has to think back before he can answer. “Half a biscuit,” he says eventually, and he can almost feel John roll his eyes.

“No wonder you feel poorly.” John shifts from foot to foot as if weighing a decision, and after a few seconds he stills and gives a slight nod. “So. You are going to stay here and take a nap because I would assume--probably correctly--that you’re running on very little sleep, too; you were nearly catatonic when I came in here.” Sherlock starts to protest, but John puts up a hand to silence him. “And I am going to go out there and order us some takeaway. When you wake up, we can eat and _then_ we can talk about whatever it is you need help figuring out.”

He looks at Sherlock as if waiting for him to argue, but Sherlock merely nods, comforted by the fact that John is here, that John is staying, that John is going to help him understand what’s going on. “Right,” John says. “Get some sleep.” He pats Sherlock on the shoulder once more, his fingers squeezing into the muscle for just a moment before he turns to leave.

As John pulls the door closed behind him, Sherlock’s head pops up, the need for reassurance suddenly suffocating him. “John.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you really here?”

John sighs again, but there’s something almost fond in the sound. “Yes. God help me, I’m really here.”

It helps. But there's something that's still wears at him, and he has to ask, trying to sound more secure than he feels. “Why?”

Silence stretches out for several long seconds, the sounds of the city creeping in around the edges to fill the void. Finally, John answers, almost too quiet to hear, “You said you needed me.” Warmth rushes from Sherlock’s chest to his toes, and he smiles softly into the darkness. “Now go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

The door snicks closed, and Sherlock lets himself relax and drift off toward sleep, knowing that when he wakes, John will be here and they can figure this out--together.

The last thing he hears before the darkness pulls him under is the soothing sound of John’s voice ordering curry for two.


	2. Chapter 2

When Sherlock wakes, it’s morning. Weak sunlight streams in through the open blinds, painting the rumpled sheets next to him a muted, misty grey. He stretches, comfortable and content, though it takes him a few seconds to remember why.

_John._

_John is here._

He grabs his worn t-shirt and his favourite pyjama bottoms from the floor next to his bed and throws them on. Pulling his camel dressing gown from the hook behind the door, he forces himself to walk, not run through the flat, looking to find John sitting in his chair with a cup of tea or perhaps curled up on the sofa with a book.

But he finds neither, and disappointment twitches in his jaw.

A glance back into the kitchen, down the hall to the open door to the loo, out onto the landing outside the sitting room door.

Nothing.

No one.

His eyes trace up the stairs beyond. Asleep in bed perhaps? Though he’d always known John to be an early riser, maybe those habits have changed in the years since they last shared this flat.

He mounts the steps two at a time, his hopes rising with him.

But at the top he finds the door pushed wide, the bed untouched. Even the dust pattern on the floor shows no signs of disturbance aside from Sherlock’s own footsteps where he wanders in to check the wardrobe and the space beneath the bed, as if John could somehow be found hiding there.

The shops then. John must have slept on the sofa and then popped out to the shops or gone in search of breakfast--it’s not as if he could do anything much with the few remaining contents of the refrigerator after Sherlock cleaned it out yesterday. He rushes back downstairs, ignoring the niggling doubt beginning to poke and prod at him, and checks the coffee table, the desk, the worktop in the kitchen, looking for a note, for any sign of where John might have gone.

When he finds none, he checks in less likely places--under the sofa, below the sink, behind the kettle, beneath the skull--finding nothing at all.

The lack of evidence only makes him more frantic. He looks high and low, checking on and under and inside everything he can reach.

It’s only when he opens the refrigerator that he finally finds something. Or rather, he finds everything, and his breath rushes out as if he’s been punched.

The refrigerator is full, but not of fresh veg and last night’s takeaway. Not of anything that John has piled there during the hours that Sherlock slept. It’s full of mouldy Chinese and lumpy milk, of bags of severed toes and trays of skin samples. Everything is there, every single thing that Sherlock had pulled out and binned yesterday, four beers and one lonely egg still buried amongst the should-be rubbish.

In dawning horror, he steps away and skids into the bedroom, nearly dropping his mobile as he plucks it from the bedside table with shock-numb fingers. When the screen alights, he has a text message from John.

_Didn’t stay up too late did you?_

_No,_ he thinks. _No no no. This cannot be happening. It can’t. This is impossible. Entirely impossible._

For the moment he ignores the message and checks the date on the screen. 3 May 2014. He struggles to gulp down a thick breath as, with shaking hands, he opens the internet browser and checks the news, finding the same headlines as yesterday, the same as the day before that.

His bare feet slap loudly against the floor as he throws himself back down the hall, flings the kitchen door wide, and bellows down the stairs, his voice pitched high with fear. “Mrs Hudson! What day is it?”

“It’s Saturday, dear!” she replies, and then a moment later, “Are you alright?”

Sherlock doesn’t reply, his throat too dry, too tight to make any sound at all. He swallows hard and closes the door, falling back against it and sinking to the floor as his shaking legs give way under him.

He has one last hope. His fingers fumble across the tiny phone keyboard, the message taking three times as long as usual because he has to correct mistake after clumsy mistake.

_Did you come by last night?_

As he waits for John’s reply, he concentrates on breathing in through his nose--deep, long pulls of air--and then pushing them back out through his mouth, trying to force the cold, nervous current from his veins, to stave off the panic he can feel sparking electric blue in his chest.

When his text alert finally sounds, he forces himself to take three more breaths before he reads John’s response.

 _No. Went to the cinema with Mary._ _  
_ _Why do you ask?_

The clatter of his mobile against the tile is loud in the quiet of the kitchen, and he buries his face in his hands, pressing his palms hard against his eyes. _John wasn’t here._

The panic jolts free of his chest and jangles through his belly, his legs, his fingers and toes. It overwhelms him, his entire body quaking uncontrollably, sweat beading against his forehead and above his lip. _How can I remember him being here if he wasn’t? How is that possible? What’s happening to me?_ The questions squeeze in around the too-quick heave of his chest, filling all the empty spaces between his toes and his scalp like sand, gritty and grinding against his bones, until he feels chafed and raw from his own fragmented thoughts.

He curls his fingers into his hair and pulls, grounding himself in the sharpness of the pain, as he starts counting backward from six hundred by threes. _600\. 597. 594. 591._ It’s a technique he first learned as a teen and perfected in places he prefers not to think about. _But John was here. I know he was. 546. 543._ _540_. _537\. How can he not remember that?_

He counts and counts, trying to occupy his mind with the numbers, the simple math, the repetition of minus three, minus three, minus three, to keep the fear and the anxiety at bay, forcing his thoughts away from text messages and takeaway and the impossibilities of time travel.

_438\. 435. 432._

As he counts the numbers lower and lower, slowly, the tremors begin to subside from violent shakes to intermittent shivers. _354\. 351. 348._ He keeps breathing deeply, keeps counting, keeps reminding himself that it will be over soon.

_279\. 276. 273._

At some point before he reaches 150, the shaking stops, and he can unclench his fists from his hair, releasing the tension in his neck to let his head fall back against the door with a thump. To be sure, he counts the rest of the way down, inhaling and exhaling slow, long breaths, willing his body to relax.

_12._

_9._

_6._

_3._

_0._

By the time the last claws of panic finally pull free of his skin, Sherlock knows what he has to do, though the thought of it turns his stomach like sour milk.

 

*****

 

Mycroft answers on the fourth ring. “To what do I owe this pleasure, brother mine?”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock begins, and something about the way he says it must give away his unease because he can practically hear his brother’s focus sharpen on the other end of the line.

“What’s wrong?”

Folded up in the comforting embrace of his chair, he curls his toes against the edge of the seat cushion and wraps his free arm tighter around his knees where they’re tucked up against his chest. “Nothing,” he says, though they both know it’s a lie.

Mycroft says nothing in response, and the silence between them prickles. Sherlock squirms in discomfort, trying to avoid the chastising stare of the skull on the mantle, until he can’t take it for a single second more and asks as plainly as he can, “What day is it?”

There’s a soft cluck of admonishment before the reply. “Saturday. The third of May. Why?”

“And what day was yesterday?”

“Sherlo--”

“Just answer the question.”

It’s Mycroft’s turn to sigh, the sound of it heavy with the weight of years of unmet expectations. “It was Friday, of course. Friday the second.”

Sherlock lets his head fall, his brow resting on his knees. Mycroft doesn’t know. This is only happening to him. He’s alone. As usual.

“Are you--” Mycroft tries to ask, his voice tight with what could be concern if Sherlock didn’t know better.

“I’m not high,” he mumbles, his voice muffled in the scant space left by the hunch of his back as he clings to his legs. “You can come by and check if you’d like, but it’s only going to serve as an inconvenience to both of us.”

“If you say you’re fine, I believe you,” his brother says in a way that means he doesn’t believe anything of the sort. “But as you’re the one who phoned me, perhaps you could be a bit more forthcoming with your reason for doing so.”

“I just…” How can he even begin to explain, when he isn’t quite sure what’s happening himself? “Do you ever get déjà vu?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Does it ever… linger?”

“How so?”

“Do you ever feel like…” He runs a hand through his hair, fingers rubbing hard at his scalp. Why can’t this be easier to explain? Why can’t someone else just understand what’s happening? Why is this only happening to him? Why is it happening at all?

A groan of frustration slips from his throat, and the words tumble out after it in a rush. “Like you’re reliving the same day over again? Like you’ve done all of this before, from morning to night, not just a fleeting moment of confused memory but an entire day you’re certain you’ve already lived.”

The silence on the other end of the line is loud with recrimination, and Sherlock can feel the accusations like a brand on his skin, the words burned in for the world to see. _Liar. Addict. Delusional._ He knows it sounds crazy. He knows. But he had to check. Mycroft is supposed to know things. He’s supposed to have the answers. So Sherlock had to ask the question.

“I can’t say that I have,” Mycroft says eventually, confirming Sherlock’s fears. He flounders then, and Sherlock hates every tiny millisecond of that pause, hates what it says about Mycroft’s thoughts about his current state of mind, hates it even more when Mycroft says his name as if he’s some skittish creature who might flee if frightened. “Sherlock. I know you’ve been rather… consumed by your efforts to assist the Watsons with their wedding, but perhaps a night off is called for. Some sleep maybe.”

“I’m fine, Mycroft. Just forget it.” Sherlock punches the button to end the conversation before he has to listen to any more of his brother’s misguided advice.

On the mantle, the skull’s castigating glare doesn’t falter.

“I’m fine,” he tells it, wishing that were true.

 

*****

 

Unsurprisingly, John arrives twenty-five minutes later, irritated and uneasy. He checks Sherlock over with tense hands and a piercing, doctor’s gaze, looking for signs of injury or illness or something self-administered. But despite whatever Mycroft told him, he finds nothing of concern and eventually leaves satisfied, with a promise to see Sherlock at 7 as planned.

The lingering feeling of John’s fingers still whispering against his wrist, on his brow, along his jaw, Sherlock settles back in his chair and runs through the facts once again.

First, he can recall John’s stag night--or the more sober portions of it at least--and all of his activities that day leading up to it.

Second, John has sent him the same text message three mornings in a row, though it isn’t an entirely uncommon question for John to ask.

Third, the date on every source he has checked has said the third, both today and yesterday, though by all usual accounts today should now be the fifth.

Fourth, when asked, Mrs Hudson has twice replied that the current day of the week is Saturday, though it should now be Monday. Mycroft is also under the impression that it is currently Saturday and that yesterday was indeed Friday.

Fifth, John believed that his stag night was last night and now thinks the same about tonight, despite the fact that Sherlock can remember the events of the actual stag night from two evenings ago.

Sixth, John was here in this flat last night, but he was not here this morning and apparently has no recollection of having been here last night.

The conclusion is obvious, no matter how implausible it may seem: Sherlock is somehow stuck in a time loop, living and reliving the same day for what is now the third time.

No matter how much he runs through the idea, looking for faults, for flaws, for leaps in logic, for any other possible explanation, he comes up empty, and after several long minutes, he has to accept it. Though it may seem like a concept out of a science fiction novel, it is the best hypothesis he has.

Now the question is why? And what should he do about it? What can he do about it? It’s not as if he woke up this morning hoping to relive this day once again. If he were forced to relive a day over and over, one in which John is engaged to Mary and living away from Baker Street, one in which Sherlock is forced to pretend he's happy that John has found love in someone else's arms, one in which he is only reminded again and again of how things once were, how they could have been, how they have changed to leave him far more alone than he's ever been before, is certainly not the day that he would choose.

But it's the day he's been given, apparently. For whatever reason, whatever caused this, this is the day that he is being forced to relive. And if he's going to be made to do this over and over for who knows how long, there are things he needs to know. How closely does the day repeat itself? When exactly does it begin and end--does everything restart at midnight so that it's a repeat of this precise date, or is there some other arbitrary marker that separates this day from the ones before and after it? How much does he have the ability to change? How much actually resets when the day starts again--for instance, if he were to cut his hair, would it grow back? What if he were injured? What if he died?

Question after question about possibilities and limitations pulse through his mind rapid-fire as he begins to consider ways to test the true scope of his predicament. And with this chaos comes calm. Because despite the strangeness of the situation, despite the undercurrent of fear still slinking along his spine, there are experiments to be done here. His head already full of hypotheses and measurements, control groups and variables, he lets the familiarity of the scientific method soothe him. He needs data, and if there is one thing Sherlock Holmes is good at, it's gathering data.

He picks himself up out of his chair and settles at the table instead, hastily pushing away slides prepared with fibres of wool and silk and cotton and pulling his notebook toward him. Questions and thoughts and potential tests make their way onto the pages, the words scrawled fast and messy as they tumble from his mind. He pauses occasionally to scratch something out, to backtrack to a previous page, and, once, to sketch a quick diagram. And by the time Mrs Hudson carries up a tray for afternoon tea, his hair is a mess from running his hands through it, there are smudges of black ink on his fingers, his cheek, and across one temple, and, most importantly, Sherlock has a plan.

 

*****

 

When he enters the pub at exactly 6:58 that night, it’s to find John already waiting for him, the sight familiar in its repetition. A quick once-over shows hair, clothes, shoes, and general demeanour all match that of 3 May. The original 3 May. _Day Zero_ , as Sherlock has decided to call it in order to better keep track of the days.

John gives him a quick nod, and Sherlock turns to the barman. “Two, um, beers please.” The words roll off his tongue without him having to even consider them, and Sherlock blinks in surprise. _Interesting._

“Pints?” the barman asks, and after a brief moment to recompose himself, Sherlock presents two graduated cylinders for him to fill.

“443 millilitres.”

John eyes the drinks warily when Sherlock sets them on the table, and Sherlock almost smiles at the familiarity of it, and of the loud sigh John heaves when he pulls out his phone and starts the timer. “What, are we on a schedule?”

“You’ll thank me,” Sherlock replies, smirking. Again, he’s surprised at how easily the words come to him. His plans require him to reproduce the results of Day Zero as closely as possible, and so far he’s managed to say the same words without even trying. The ease of it shifts a little of the weight from his chest, and he clinks his glass against John’s in a mild toast before swallowing down a mouthful of beer.

When they’ve finished their drinks, they move to the next pub and then the next. The conversation is easy when it flows and the silence is comfortable when it doesn’t, and Sherlock lets the night unspool as it will, trying his best not to overthink any of it. He had expected to spend the evening constantly working to remember what to say and what to do, struggling to match that first night whenever he could, but instead the evening plays out exactly as Sherlock remembers it, for as much of it as he can remember, all on its own. It seems instead as if this is the neutral state for the evening, as if things will play out exactly the same if he just keeps himself from forcing them to change.

So he goes along with it, losing himself in conversation and the comfort of John at his side. The sensation is still odd--the constant tingle of déjà vu scratching at the base of his skull--but Sherlock finds that if he ignores it, if he focuses on John and John alone, it’s easier, as it always is when he has John there to ground him.

There are more pubs and more beers, colored lights and gratingly loud music. There are arguments about ash and John’s arms wrapped around him, strong and solid and steady. There’s laughter on the stairwell and lazy games in the sitting room. There’s a client and a crime scene and, later, a bench in a cell. And when Sherlock drifts off to sleep, it’s to the quiet sound of John’s breaths next to him in the darkness, and Sherlock thinks that maybe reliving this night isn’t so bad after all.

 

*****

 

In the morning, Sherlock wakes wrapped in sheets dappled with silvery sunlight and an otherwise empty bed. He stretches and scratches and blinks himself awake, reaching absently for his mobile to check the time. A text alert chimes almost as soon as he picks it up, and he thumbs open a message from John.

_Didn’t stay up too late did you?_

It takes a minute for Sherlock to realise why the words seem so familiar, the memory of the last few days then slamming into him all at once. One day, lived three times, each different but also the same. Sparks of panic try to ignite in his fingertips but he breathes deep and slow and manages to extinguish them before they can catch. _It’s okay_ , he tells himself. _You have a plan, remember?_ _Test. Measure. Evaluate. You can do this._

He sets his mobile back on the table beside the bed, John’s message ignored for now, and closes his eyes, sifting back through the fog of the alcohol--or is that a side effect of the repetition? another thing to test--to take stock of the previous evening. He recalls John’s jumper, his hair, his exasperated sigh. He recalls too many pubs and the sour taste of too much beer. He remembers a little bit of Baker Street, particularly the stairs, Mrs Hudson, his own chair in the sitting room, but beyond that is a blackness he can’t quite penetrate. Had John been with him here at the flat? He thinks so. Had someone else been here, too? He has a vague feeling that there was much more to the night than what he can recall, but where the memories of the earlier parts of the evening are brightly lit, with sharp, crisp edges, the end of the evening is blurry and dark, mere shadows fading into night.

It would be helpful if he could remember more--he’ll have to find a way to increase the percentage of the evening he can recall--but at least what he does remember is promising in how well it matches the events he recalls from Day Zero. If he’s going to truly test the parameters of how this cycle works, he needs to first have a solid understanding of the base scenario that plays out over the course of the day, before he begins to play with the many, many variables he might be able to change.

Which brings him to the next step in his plan. Develop a routine for the day. Not just the stag night, but the entire day should be replicated as closely as possible to ensure the clearest results. To start, Sherlock plucks up his mobile again and sends John a quick response.

 _Don’t worry about me. See you_ _  
_ _tonight at 7._

Before he powers off the screen, he checks the date, just to be sure. 3 May. As expected. And with the resignation that he does indeed have to live this day yet again, Sherlock pushes himself out of bed and into the shower.

 

*****

 

When Sherlock arrives at the pub that evening to find John exactly as expected, again, he can’t quite help the smile that plays across his lips. John spots him before it fades and casts a lopsided smile of his own back Sherlock’s way, and something warm and sweet rolls in Sherlock’s belly. _That’s not how this is supposed to go_ , he reminds himself, turning toward the bar. The plan is to replicate the evening again as exactly as possible. No changes. He schools the smile from his face before he turns back to John, and aside from that beautiful little aberration, the evening goes exactly as he expects.

 

*****

 

As does the morning after.

 

*****

 

Slowly, Sherlock settles into the routine he’s building for himself. Wake up. Reply to John. Shower and shave. In the mornings, he plays his violin, something slow and soft and contemplative. In the afternoon, he has tea with Mrs Hudson.

He studies slides under the lens of his microscope, but he doesn't bother to record observations in his notebook because they won't be there the following day. He'd checked, back on Day Three, to see if somehow his plans for this fucked up experiment that his life has become had managed to survive the day's reset, but of course the pages had been mockingly blank. He had thanked himself for his forethought then, that even in the chaos and confusion of the situation, he had thought rationally enough to know he needed to store away his questions and his hypotheses and his tests somewhere safer, the one place they seemingly can't be erased by the repetition of time. Each day he adds any new observations to the files stored away in his mind palace, knowing it's the only way he'll be able to keep them beyond the current day.

He reserves a little time for experiments. He can't do anything long-term, as they'll never actually get anywhere, but he can test some of the more minor questions he has about the limitations of his predicament. One day he takes a knife to his thumb, making a clean, short, shallow slice that wells crimson with blood. He cleans it and covers it with a plaster, waking the next day with his thumb bare and unblemished. Another day, he snaps photos on his mobile, saving them to the phone's memory, emailing them to himself, backing them up in online storage, even hooking up an old printer to his laptop and printing out a copy of one. The picture of John's chair is no longer tucked safely beneath the skull on the mantle the next morning, Sherlock's email is empty, and the file is missing from both the online storage and his mobile.

In the evenings, he goes out with John. Pub after pub, beer after beer. The night is the same, the same, the same.

Then he wakes the next morning and starts all over again.

Text, shower, violin, tea, slides, experiments, pub, pub, pub. Wash, rinse, repeat.

 

*****

 

He does not clean out the refrigerator again.

 

*****

 

Sherlock repeats the evening properly ten times before he decides to try changing things. His experiments around the flat have shown that whatever he changes will likely be unchanged again the next day, but part of his brain still niggles at him _what if it stays that way?_ What if he somehow changes too much and ruins things with John, and what if time chooses that exact night to start moving forward again, leaving him stuck in a reality where John has slipped even further from his grasp?

He reminds himself that he’s already drastically changed the day--twice--before he truly understood what was happening and hadn’t ruined things with John then, but still the idea of it sits dark and heavy on his chest, stealing the air from his lungs under the pressing weight of possibility, until he has to count backwards from six hundred by threes so he can breathe again.

He knows he has to change things though. Who knows how long he’ll be stuck like this? (And what happens in the long-term anyway? Does he even age while stuck in this state? Can he ever die?) The boredom of living the exact same night over and over possibly forever would certainly drive him mad. So he has to change things somehow.

He’ll start with something small.

 

*****

 

He begins his tests by drinking less, pouring one of his beers into an empty glass on another table while John is in the loo. It doesn’t make much difference in how the rest of the evening plays out, but in the morning he can remember a bit more of the night than he had before and decides to try pushing it further. After five more nights, he’s ending the evening half as drunk as he’s now pretending to be, and finally the entirety of the night is clear in his memory.

 

*****

 

The next evening, after half-drunk beers, after arguments about ash, after the stairwell and the sitting room, the client and the crime scene and the cops, Sherlock finally decides to make an actual change, the pleasant buzz of mild inebriation making him brave. Underneath, there’s still uncertainty and worry and a thousand what-ifs running cool in his veins, but it’s the end of the night and what could it hurt to change something small? Just a different conversation, some subtle variation in how this night ends. Just to see.

Minutes pass as his confidence builds, the jittery feeling in his chest fading away before he finally whispers “John?” into the darkness. He stares up at the night-stained ceiling of the cell and tries not to hold his breath as he waits for the word to worm its way into John’s liquor-slowed brain.

“Mmm?” comes the eventual reply.

“Do you believe in fate?”

“Dunno,” John says. “Haven’t thought about it much.”

He waits, but John doesn’t offer any more so he tries again. “If you had to live one day, just--just one day over and over again, what day would you pick?”

He hears rather than sees John turn his head toward him, his breath blowing faintly across Sherlock’s cheek. He’s sitting closer than Sherlock had realised, and the liquid courage in his veins tells him that if he turned his head, too, John’s lips wouldn’t be so far away at all.

A small voice somewhere in the back of his skull whispers something Sherlock doesn’t quite want to hear, something about big changes and ruined eternities, something he knows he should listen to but would much rather ignore.

“Mm, dunno,” John says again, but it sounds like a lie, and Sherlock fights the urge to test its truth on his tongue. He can practically hear John thinking, silence filling the seconds until he can’t resist the need to look, to try to parse out what that silence means, so he turns, just to see-- _just to see_ , he tells himself firmly--and finds the dark glimmer of John’s eyes in the night. “Probably,” John says, barely a whisper, the word brushing soft across Sherlock’s lips like a kiss, “probably a day spent with you.”

Sherlock’s brow crinkles, the answer catching him unaware, the word _why_ already curling on his lips. He knows why he would choose to spend an eternity of repeated days with John, but why would John choose to spend one with him?

John’s eyes dart to his mouth as if he can see the question written there, his tongue slipping out to wet his lips, and Sherlock sways forward, just a millimetre or two, before he can stop himself. The soft hitch of John’s breath tells him it doesn’t go unnoticed, and for a moment, for the span of a single heartbeat, Sherlock thinks that maybe he’s not the only one fighting to maintain his distance.

_Oh._

_OH._

John is still looking at him, still mere inches away, and the silent hope Sherlock sees there is uncomfortably familiar, and he has to turn away before he does something rash.

 _Small steps_ , he reminds himself. That’s what tonight was supposed to be about. He needs to stick to the plan.

But even more than that, he needs space. He needs time. He needs to think this through, to consider the implications, to decide what he can do about the possibility that John might… That he could possibly… No, he couldn’t… Could he?

He looks back toward the ceiling and blows out some of his tension in a long, quiet breath. And as he lies there in the darkness considering what it all means, John’s thigh brushes against the back of his hand where it dangles off the cot, and Sherlock wonders if it isn’t quite an accident, wonders if the warmth that spreads from that simple point of contact is radiating through John, too. And for the first time since all this started, Sherlock feels something akin to hope.

Because maybe there really is a purpose to all of this. Maybe there’s a reason he’s trapped living this one day over and over again, and maybe it isn’t actually some special version of hell. Maybe, just maybe, it’s fate or god or karma or whatever higher power it is that people believe in, maybe it’s life giving him a chance to try again. A chance to get it right. A chance to end the night the way he had wished it would the first time--with John in his arms.


	3. Chapter 3

During Sherlock’s time away, he had sometimes wondered what could have happened if he’d stayed. If there had been a world without Moriarty, without the threat that had sent him away, what would have become of him and John? 

Back before his far too literal fall from grace, he’d so often felt as if he and John were standing on a precipice--the edge of a rooftop perhaps, in a sickeningly apt metaphor--the two of them dancing along the ledge. At times, a smile in the back of a cab, a hand lingering too long against an arm, a glance warm and soft and knowing, would send them skittering closer to the line where roof met sky, his heart beating in his throat, stomach swooping at the thought they might tip over. 

He had wondered what it would take to do it, to send them tumbling. To set them soaring. He had wondered if he dared. If they even could. 

And then Moriarty had shown up to unceremoniously give him a shove, and Sherlock had fallen rather than flown. 

By the time that he’d crawled back, bloodied and bruised and halfway to broken, whatever he’d once thought he’d seen, whatever flicker of possibility might have existed between him and John before, had been snuffed out by someone sweet and blonde and pretty, someone with soft curves rather than sharp angles, someone good, someone normal. Someone who had stepped into the hole in John’s life as smoothly as if she’d been made to fit, who would spend the rest of her life reaping the immeasurable rewards of all the sacrifice Sherlock had sown.

He’s tried not to be bitter about it.

And every day he fails, just a little.

Because the aching loss of it still feels like a hole beneath his breastbone, like a place where a rib was meant to be, an essential part of his structure stripped away, clawed out of him during two years on the run. 

In his morning shower, he presses a hand to his chest, wet fingers digging into his skin as if he can feel the hollow there. The bitterness beneath rises to the surface like a bruise, dark and sore, and it takes all the strength of his will not to prod at it until it’s tender. 

Flushed and warm where the spray beats against his back, he instead lets the steady pressure, the heat, the unbroken drumming of the water against the tub soothe the sting, repeating his daily mantra that it’s not her fault, that he’s the one who left, that it was his choice, his sacrifice to make.

If things were broken with John, it had been of his own doing, not hers. He’d lost it all long before he’d stepped off the roof of Barts. He’d lost as soon as he’d agreed to play Moriarty’s game--a game that had simply played out to its inevitable, heartbreaking conclusion. 

He was always going to end up here. 

Alone.

And yet, last night, it had seemed for the first time in a long, long while as if perhaps not all was lost.

The way John’s eyes had flicked to Sherlock’s mouth before wetting his lips. The breath he’d taken when Sherlock had come so close to giving in. Not frightened, not repulsed, but almost, almost as if he were surprised to see his own desires begin to come to life. As if he were restraining himself, too, the two of them once again dancing on the edge, holding their breath and wondering if they would fall or if they would fly.

But that can’t be right.

Can it?

The thought has tortured Sherlock since his eyes popped open this morning.

Since his return, he hasn’t seen a single sign that John could be interested, not like he had before he left.

Except that’s not entirely true, is it?

Because on this endless cycle of stag nights, when he’d started drinking only half as much as he pretended to be, Sherlock had been surprised to discover that the almost-remembered feeling of John’s hand on his knee hadn’t been a dream. That it had been accompanied by an  _ I don’t mind. _ That the whole of their silly game had been filled with soft smiles and gentle laughter and the quiet kind of spark that feels like it could flare up bright if given enough room to breathe. 

And then there’d been John’s admission last night, that of all the days he could choose to live over again, he would pick one spent with Sherlock. Not with his fiancé. Not a night with a long lost love or some wild day from his youth. Not a time from his fondly-remembered Army days. Not even sometime with his sister back when she was sober or his mother before she passed away. But inexplicably, unexpectedly, astoundingly, he would choose a lifetime of days and nights spent with Sherlock.

And nearly three weeks ago now, when John had found Sherlock curled up in bed, cold and confused and nearly catatonic, when Sherlock had allowed his insecurity to get the better of him and in a moment of panic asked John why he’d come, John had told him.  _ You said you needed me. _

And maybe that’s it. 

Maybe John wants to be needed. 

Maybe he wants to be wanted. 

And Sherlock’s been too blinded by his own grief, by the twisting of the brambles knotted in his gut, that he hasn’t seen it. 

That maybe, just maybe, John does want him, as much as he wants John. 

Sherlock turns off the water and pulls back the shower curtain, reaching for a towel from the rack, his heart drumming against his chest in an uncomfortable duet of hope and uncertainty. 

After all this repetition and these tiny revelations, he thinks he can see it. Just a moonlit corona. A sliver. A knife edge silver-sharp, buried beneath cases and wedding planning and stag nights for two, but there all the same. A glimmer of possibility buried in the shadows, just waiting for him to bring it out into the light.

He could try this, he thinks, to see if there really is something there between them. 

If he does, he’ll have to tread carefully. John doesn’t respond well to being pushed too hard, and the last thing he needs is for John to refuse him the same night that time unsticks from this seemingly endless loop. 

As he towels himself dry and fluffs his hair artlessly, he considers his options. 

What he needs is plausible deniability. A way to keep himself from being the one to ruin them for good. 

His best course of action then would be to let John take the lead, to subtly manipulate their circumstances so that an opportunity presents itself and then let John be the one to take advantage of it.

Take the previous evening for instance. If Sherlock could repeat it exactly the same but not turn away this time, what might happen? Would John close the distance between them, giving in to what they both seem to want? Would he clamber up and let the weight of his body press Sherlock down into the bench? Would it stop there, just quiet kisses, perhaps whispered words in the dark, or would John take it further, hands fumbling at buttons and zips, mouths smearing hot against bare skin?

It seems like an impossibility, and yet, he hadn’t realised until last night that even a kiss might be possible, so who knows what could or couldn’t happen?

Wrapping the towel around his waist, Sherlock opens the door to the bedroom, steam billowing out of the doorway in soft clouds. 

Tonight, he decides, seems like a good night to find out.

 

*****

 

Nothing, apparently, is what happens.

Sherlock repeats the night exactly the same way, navigating them back to the same teetering moment of quiet desire. 

Their eyes meet. 

John licks his lips. 

Sherlock sways in just a little.

John’s breath hitches just as before, and they linger there, hovering on the edge of too close to stop themselves. 

And then the officer on duty for the evening clears his throat, and the moment is gone. 

John turns away, and Sherlock is left with no choice but to stare at the ceiling and continue to wonder at what might have been.

He tries again the next two nights, but the results of course are exactly the same. He must have missed the officer’s cough after their first near-kiss, too lost in his own head to pay much attention to the rest of the world. 

He tries earlier the next evening, not long after they’re first locked in their cell, but this time when Sherlock asks John what day he’d live over again, there’s no breath on his cheek, no whispers or wetting of lips. John doesn’t turn toward him at all, no matter how hard Sherlock wills him to do so. 

Instead he eventually huffs out a hoarse laugh and says, “Probably not one where we get arrested, yeah?”

Later in the evening doesn’t work either--John’s already snoring softly at his side by the time Sherlock tries to ask--nor does trying a different conversational approach. No matter what he asks or when he asks it, he just can’t seem to get John to kiss him. 

But even though he hasn’t gotten the result he wants, the repetition has made him more and more certain that he isn’t the only one who wants it. 

Each time they repeat the night as they had that first time, he can see hope there, banked but still burning. John wants this, wants him, and it’s so clear that it’s a wonder Sherlock hadn’t realized it sooner. 

And if that’s what John wants, that’s what John is going to get. 

Because even if John won’t kiss him like this, Sherlock can find a scenario in which he will. 

All he needs is time, and of that, he seems to have an endless supply.

 

*****

 

It takes three more days of convincing himself before he manages to put his new plan into action. And even then, he finds he needs more than a bit of liquid courage, too.

This time when they arrive back at the flat, Sherlock is properly drunk, not just pretending to be, the floor swaying under his feet as he tumbles into his chair and carefully accepts the glass John offers him. 

Their fingers brush at the exchange, the contact jangling his nerves into motion again, and he has to take a generous sip of scotch to soothe them back to stillness, to keep from shaking out of his own skin in anticipation.

John settles back into his own chair and smiles. It’s a slight, lazy thing, and Sherlock can’t help but return it, comfortable and content just to have John home again, night after night, the warm glow of the sitting room lights glinting golden in his hair, smoothing all the creases and lines he gained while Sherlock was away--lines he knows all too well that he caused.

But here, like this, together in the soft cocoon of 221B, it could almost be before. Before engagements and empty tube carriages. Before a cell in Serbia and a midnight flight out of London and all the dark, nameless places that had come between. Before a note he’d never wanted to leave, a call he’d never wanted to make.

It feels a bit like starting over, like promise. Like he really can do this somehow--try again and get it right for once. If not tonight, then the next one or the one after that.

Hope tingling in his fingers, he hands John a biro and a cigarette paper.

John accepts them with a bubble of laughter that settles each night in Sherlock’s chest like an ember, small but bright, ready to set him aflame. “No peeking,” he jokes as he curls his hand around the slip of paper to hide it from view, and Sherlock marvels at him, at this man who has seen far more than his fair share of pain and yet hasn’t been hardened by it, who can sit across from the one who caused so much of it and smile and joke and laugh and actually mean it all.

John finishes writing Sherlock’s name on his paper and looks up to catch Sherlock still staring. “Sherlock?” he says, cheeks flushing, lips curling in a hint of bewildered amusement. “You have to write something, too, you know.”

“Oh. Right.” 

Sherlock shakes himself from his thoughts and presses pen to paper, scrawling down an  _ M _ out of habit before he remembers the plan still sloshing around somewhere in his head. He carefully strikes it out and starts again, writing  _ John Watson _ as precisely as he can after too many beers, nodding at John when he’s finished.

He reaches out to hand John his paper, the same as he has for nearly a month now, but this time John doesn’t even look at it. Instead he slides forward in his seat.

“Come here.”

Sherlock tries to push himself forward, too, struggling to make his liquid limbs cooperate, but eventually he manages to sit up. He and John aren’t quite close enough for their knees to touch, but it’s a near thing, and Sherlock imagines he can feel the warmth radiating from John’s body in its proximity. 

After a long moment of waiting, of watching, John’s eyes finally dart away toward the paper in his own hand. His tongue slips out to wet the back of it, and it’s all Sherlock can do not to lean in then and chase John’s mouth with his own. 

With a surprisingly steady hand, John sweeps a stray curl out of the way and presses the slip of paper to Sherlock’s forehead, smoothing his fingers over it to ensure it sticks. 

But when he should pull away, when Sherlock expects him to, his hand lingers instead, the soft pad of his index finger brushing sweetly against the words. Almost as if he were caressing Sherlock’s name written there. 

Slow. 

Gentle. 

Overwhelmingly tender and unbearably close to something that feels like longing. Like love.

It’s too little and too much all at once, and embarrassingly, Sherlock can feel the corners of his eyes begin to prickle. But he can’t do that, he can’t cry, not in front of John on his stag night. Especially not when John has barely touched him, barely done anything at all. 

But the twinge at his eyes becomes a tickle in his throat, an ache in the hinge of his jaw, a vice around his lungs, and still John’s hand lingers, and Sherlock can’t breathe. And as much as he hates himself for it, as much as he doesn’t want to, he has to put an end to it, to give himself a moment to regain his composure before he embarrasses himself.

He blinks hard and clears his throat, breaking the silence as gently but as quickly as he can, and finally, finally John pulls his hand away, stammering an apology, the moment shattering, and Sherlock can gulp down a needed breath.

But the cost of it is the cold shock of reality as John leans back, disappointed, the dying of the flames that had begun to flare up between them, and that isn’t what Sherlock wanted. He just needed space, a moment, a single breath, like a man in the middle of drowning. One breath to sustain him as he sinks under again. 

So he catches John’s wrist before he can pull completely away.

“No,” he says, meaning  _ don’t go, don’t hide _ , meaning  _ no that wasn’t what I meant at all _ . “Stay.” He swallows. “I just needed-- I need to-- to do yours.”

It takes a moment, but John’s eyes finally find his again, and he nods. Sherlock smiles softly back at him-- _ thank you _ \--before wetting the paper in his own hand, and this close he can feel the weight of John’s gaze on his mouth. 

When he adheres the name to John’s head, he follows John’s cue, letting his fingers brush back and forth a time too many, letting some of the warmth rebuild between them, letting John know that that was far from a rejection. And when he finally lets his hand drop, they both stay right where they are, hovering on the edge of too close. 

“You first,” Sherlock says, his voice hushed and intimate.

“Am I a vegetable?” John asks, and Sherlock merely shakes his head. There’s no space left between them for jokes tonight. “Your go.”

“Am I human?”

John’s eyes flicker over Sherlock’s face before he replies. 

“Yes,” he says, low but firm. “Yes you are.”

Sherlock’s chest tightens around the words, around the something deeper that seems hidden inside them, tucked away like jewels. He wants to examine them, to chip away at the veneer until he can find the gem-bright meaning buried at their core. 

“What about me?” John asks before he can even begin to try. “Am I human?” 

There’s a weight to it, the question heavy with these same implications, a subtext Sherlock can’t quite--or maybe doesn’t dare to--name. 

John’s eyes seek his out, hold them both there, breathing together in the stillness. 

When Sherlock says, “Yes,” the corners of John’s eyes crinkle, and it feels like something has been decided between them, like something has been agreed upon. Something upon which the rest of the evening--maybe the rest of their lives--hinged, and Sherlock has tipped the scales in what he can only hope is his favour. 

“Am I a man?” John asks eventually.

“Yes.”

“Tall?”

“Mmm, no, but not as short as people think.”

“Nice?”

“Ish,” Sherlock says, and John chuckles.

“Clever?”

“I’d say so.”

That one catches John off-guard, his eyes widening. “You would?” He thinks for a moment, his brow creasing adorably, before adding, half-joking, “Hold on. You didn’t write your own name, did you?”

Sherlock laughs, and John joins him, the moment of mirth spooling out between them, all crinkled noses and toothy grins, the two of them regarding each other with unguarded affection, the words to express it just peeking out from behind their teeth.

It’s an open kind of joy that Sherlock hasn’t allowed himself to feel in a long while. But with John it’s easy. 

It’s always been easy.

When they finally sober, he knows that this is it. This is his chance to press the evening toward something more. 

“No,” he says. “I wrote someone better.”

“Better than you?” John asks with a quirk of his brow.

Sherlock’s reply is quiet but sincere. “Far better.”

John’s eyes track up to the name on Sherlock’s head, as if it could somehow hold the answer, back down again to Sherlock’s eyes, to his mouth, his nose, his chin, searching, searching, seemingly looking for the answer, for the truth. 

“Am I important then?”

“Very,” Sherlock says definitively. “To some people, at least.”

He can see the light just begin to dawn then, the answer start to wriggle its way to the surface, work its way up through layers of denial and disbelief. A truth not yet real, not acknowledged, but present enough to make John wonder.

“To some people?” he asks, and Sherlock can hear the hope in it, fizzing on the back of his tongue.

And there it is again, the thought that had come to Sherlock in the shower a few days before:  _ John wants to be wanted _ . He wants to know that he’s wanted. And the thought of that, that John is hopeful, that there really is a part of him that wishes for Sherlock to want him, buzzes along Sherlock’s bones, jitters through his frame, lights him up from the inside with electric courage.

There’s only one answer he could possibly give.

“To me.”

John sits momentarily silent. Swallows hard. Blinks harder. And when his next question comes, it’s barely more than a whisper. “Am I--” He licks his lips. “Am I attractive?”

“Gorgeous.”

Everything in 221B stops. 

The city hums ceaselessly beyond the sitting room windows, but the flat is frozen in this moment, still and silent save for the too-loud beating of Sherlock’s own heart as he waits for John to say something, do something. Anything.

The entire history of the universe, from the explosion of gases that formed its creation to the dying light of the very last star, passes in the six seconds before John pulls in a shuddering breath and looks at Sherlock as if he’s just made the most incredible deduction of his life.

Sherlock feels as if he could crack in two, as if he might.

All he can manage to say is, “John.”

And then John’s hand is there, palm turned up between their open legs, waiting. 

An entreaty.

An offering.

This. This is everything he’s wanted. More than a glancing touch, easily brushed off as happenstance. More than the caress of a knee, explained away as platonic. This is deliberate. This is a choice. This is John jumping in with two feet if Sherlock is ready to jump with him.

And Sherlock has been ready to jump for years.

He hesitates for only a moment before slipping his hand into John’s, soft tips of small fingers brushing against the inside of his wrist, thumb sweeping shiver-light along the back of his hand, sending sparks along his veins. 

John wets his lips again, his eyes darting to Sherlock’s mouth and back as if asking for permission.

“I don’t mind,” Sherlock whispers, and he leans in, slowly, so very slowly, and John gravitates toward him, their heads tilting to opposite sides, as if they already know exactly how they’re supposed to fit together.

Sherlock’s eyes flutter closed as John’s nose slides against his, the wet warmth of John’s breath on his lips, and he wills John to close the remaining distance before he faints from the anticipation.

Two knocks. “Oooh-hoo! Oh…”

The two of them jump apart, trying their best not to look guilty but far too late for it to matter. 

Mrs Hudson stops in the doorway, looking abashed, a dark-haired woman hovering in her wake. “Sorry, boys, I didn’t know you were-- Were--”

“Just playing a game,” John says, too quickly and a little too loud, color high in his cheeks as he ducks his head.

“Oh?” she asks, “What game?” and Sherlock silently begs her to stop talking, to just turn around and go.

They had been so close. So close. How could he have forgotten about Mrs Hudson, about the client?  _ Stupid _ .

“Not sure,” John mumbles, looking back up at Sherlock. “But I think I was winning.” He throws a quick wink Sherlock’s way and chuckles, clearly trying to defuse some of the tension. 

And it does. It’s a little awkward, a little forced, but it works a bit, setting Sherlock’s skittish nerves more at ease. He would have thought John would be ashamed, but he really doesn’t seem to be. Embarrassed to have been caught out surely, but not embarrassed to have nearly kissed Sherlock. Not regretful. Not horrified at his own actions. But instead simply going along as if nearly kissing Sherlock were a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence and he would just prefer if Mrs Hudson didn’t walk in in the middle of it.

A smirk still crooked on his mouth, John turns to the door. “So what can we do for you, Mrs Hudson?”

Her eyes dart back and forth between the two of them, narrowed but twinkling, clearly expecting a further explanation and receiving nothing but John’s most charming, drunken smile in return. 

Eventually, she gives up, shaking her head. “There’s a client here to see you.” 

She waves the woman into the flat and takes her leave, disappearing down the stairs. 

Sherlock is tempted to send Tessa away, to try to recapture the mood and pick up where he and John had left off, but somehow he knows the moment has passed. All that’s left to do is get on with the rest of the evening and try again tomorrow night.

With a small sigh, he turns to face Tessa, still hovering in the doorway. 

“Which one of you is Sherlock Holmes?” she asks, and Sherlock gets unsteadily to his feet to offer her a chair.

 

*****

 

The next night, Sherlock remembers to close and lock the door. 

But when Mrs Hudson knocks, the spell is still broken, leaving him with the ghost of John’s breath on his lips and the bitter ache of disappointment settling along his ribs.

Again.

 

*****

 

He tries telling Mrs Hudson not to let anyone up to the flat. Not to interrupt. He tries leaving a note on the door. 

None of it helps. 

Every night, he nearly kisses John, and every night, Mrs Hudson interrupts, even if he asks her not to. 

“It’s important,” she says. “She’s a client, and she needs your help.”

_ She’s not the only one _ , Sherlock thinks. 

But what help is there for him, for this? His struggles, it seems, are not so easily solved.

 

*****

 

Each morning in his shower, Sherlock thinks about the night before. 

He thinks about their hands held together, intimate and close, his pulse beating a traitorous tattoo against John’s fingertips. 

He thinks about John’s eyes, those deep oceans of lapis lazuli, focusing on his mouth, looking at it like he wants nothing more than to know how it tastes. 

He thinks about leaning in, about tipping them together, about the inevitable gravity of their bodies in proximity, how they always seem to be reaching, tilting their axes, pulling each other slowly into orbit and toward an inevitable collision.

Clearly, the trouble here isn’t in the wanting. 

It’s in the timing.

While Sherlock knows how to navigate them to the precise moment over and over again, there is nothing he can seem to do to keep Mrs Hudson from interrupting.

Nothing in this particular scenario at least.

It’s obvious now that this specific variation on his life just isn’t going to produce the result that he wants, which means it’s time for another change.

It shouldn’t take much, he thinks, to make it work. If he could just get them back to the flat earlier, still wrap them up in the comfort of home and the quiet intimacy it arouses, maybe he can find a similar way to turn the tide of the evening in his favour.

Everything after that will change, of course. Their conversations, the mood, everything about how the night plays out.

But there has to be another moment, another way in which this could work. 

It’s just a matter of finding it.

 

*****

 

It takes four nights to find the most promising option and six more for him to develop a plan.

There’s a point in the evening where they’ve both just crossed the tipsy mark and John is full of laughter and soft smiles, where there’s winks and lip licks and maybe even a bit of flirting. And when Sherlock suggests they head home early, John agrees, eager and interested.

There’s still scotch and the game--at Sherlock’s suggestion--and just the two of them where they belong, but they’re back home three pubs earlier in the night, which means there’s well more than an hour more time before Mrs Hudson knocks on the door with Tessa in tow.

So Sherlock watches and learns.

He looks for places to make his move.

He tests different questions and different answers and even different facial expressions to see their effects. 

And finally, after nearly a week of experiments, of playing with variables to find the mood that suits the evening best, he’s ready to give it a real try.

 

*****

 

They tumble into the flat the now-standard three pubs early, tipsy and giggling, shedding their jackets onto the sofa and toeing off their shoes.

_ Music _ , Sherlock thinks, recalling the first step in his plan, and turns to the desk. He scrolls the options on his mp3 player, pausing to listen to the tinkling, domestic sounds of John behind him in the kitchen. It sets his heart soaring, as it still manages to do every single night. 

John here in their flat. John here in his life. 

So many times he had thought he’d lost this, and yet here it is, night after night. Perhaps not quite in the way he’d imagined, but far better than the nothing he still sometimes expects to find, still afraid that if he blinks too hard all this might vanish like a mirage.

After a bit of searching, he settles on something light, something buoyant but soft with a playful piano and the warm undertones of a guitar, and turns around to find John pressing a glass into his hand.

It’s one of the things Sherlock had been surprised to find remains the same no matter what time they come back to the flat--John always goes for the scotch when they get here. 

It had taken him several days to realise that perhaps he isn’t the only one guilty of needing a little liquid courage.

“Cheers,” John says, tapping the rim of his glass against Sherlock’s and taking a sip. 

Sherlock returns the toast and takes a sip, too, to calm the nervous fluttering in his belly.

He shouldn’t be anxious, not really, not after more than a month of this, but each night is still new in its own way. Even though he has plans, even though he’s tested some of the variables, when he puts everything together, he never quite knows how it will turn out, and all of that possibility fizzes in his stomach like champagne, sweet and sour all at once.

After a few moments standing in comfortable, companionable quiet, John clears his throat. 

“So,” he says, “you’re the one who said we should come back here early.” He looks at Sherlock, brows raised in expectation. Spreads his hands wide, his drink sloshing precariously toward the rim. “What now?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sherlock says with practiced ease. 

He waits for John to raise his glass to take another sip and adds, popping the p on the end obscenely, “Thought we’d just see what comes up.” 

John pauses, glass halfway to his mouth, and looks up at Sherlock instead, eyes narrowed as if he can’t really decide whether or not that was the innuendo Sherlock intended it to be.

After a moment, he apparently decides to just let it slide past, unmentioned.

“So you didn’t have anything in particular in mind then?”

Sherlock shrugs. “I’m up for whatever.”

John’s eyes narrow again, his head tilting a bit to the side like he’s trying to solve a difficult puzzle, and he huffs out a short laugh. “Uh, okay.”

Casually, not like he’s planned this out at all, Sherlock offers, “We could play a game. If you like.”

Without waiting for a response, he turns and sets his glass on the desk, walking around to the side, digging through the drawers, and coming back with supplies in hand. “Ever heard of the Rizla game?”

“Yeah. Though I’m surprised you have.”

“Played it more times than you’d think.”  Sherlock chuckles, grabbing his glass and collapsing into his chair.

When John settles across from him, he hands over a biro and a paper and then curls a hand around his own paper as he scribbles down a single word. John does the same, still scribbling Sherlock’s name--another interesting fixture of these repeated nights--saying with a hint of a smile in his voice, “No peeking.”

“I could say the same to you,” Sherlock retorts, letting his knees fall wide, trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of his own innuendo.

This is the mood he had decided on. Flirty. Fun. Open to possibility. And even though it’s far more cavalier than he’d normally allow himself to be with John, the growing confidence that, whatever happens here, he should wake up tomorrow with a fresh start, gives him the courage he needs to press on.

It takes a moment for the words to work their way through John’s concentration, but when they finally register, he looks up, his gaze catching on Sherlock’s legs and tracking up the full length of his body. Sherlock tries not to shiver under the weight of it, as slowly, John looks up up up, calves and knees and thighs, torso, chest, neck, to find Sherlock smirking. 

John’s mouth twists into a lopsided grin of its own, a little disbelieving, a little hesitant. But hopeful. Eager.

“You do me, and I’ll do you?” Sherlock offers.

John’s eyes widen, but his tongue sliding out to wet his lips gives away his interest.

_ Not quite yet _ , Sherlock thinks--this isn’t their moment, not yet--and lifts the paper in his hand to indicate the other, more obvious meaning of his words.

“Oh,” John says with a laugh. “Right.” 

He leans forward, licking the back of his paper, and presses it to Sherlock’s forehead. When it’s stuck in place, he gives it an extra little slap, for which Sherlock pretends to be affronted, gasping theatrically with laughter in his eyes. And in retaliation, when he’s done affixing his paper to John’s head, he taps a finger against the tip of John’s nose, and they both collapse in a fit of giggles, melting back into their chairs.

When they’ve settled again, warm and comfortable, Sherlock stretches out his legs, propping his feet on John’s chair, one on either side of his left leg. 

John looks down at the one resting between his legs, clearly trying to decide whether to say something about it, so Sherlock heads him off. He twists his foot and curls his toes, pinching at the seam of John’s trousers halfway up his thigh. 

“Oi!” John cries, but he’s giggling again, and Sherlock wants nothing more than to taste that joy on his lips. “Git.” He nudges at Sherlock’s foot playfully, making like he’s going to shove him off, but ends up just resting his hand on Sherlock’s foot instead, his thumb sweeping back and forth from arch to ankle and back again, sending shivers tingling up his calves and thighs.

“So,” Sherlock says, relaxing into John’s touch. “You first.”

“Okay. Um. Am I… a person?”

“No.”

John shrugs. “Your go.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. Am I an animal?”

Sherlock grins, a wicked thing, and John chuckles and throws him a quick wink. “This,” he clarifies, pointing to his own forehead.

“No,” Sherlock says, still smiling. “Not an animal. Am I… a man?”

John’s reply comes with a brief flick of his gaze down Sherlock’s body and back up again. “Yep.”

He picks up his glass to take a sip while he thinks of another question, and Sherlock sits up, dropping his foot back to the floor, bracing his elbows on his knees, leaning in across the distance in anticipation. 

He doesn’t know exactly where this is going, but there’s a question he wants John to ask, a question he’s eventually asked each of the past few nights when Sherlock’s written this same answer on his paper, and he’s hoping it’s coming soon. Because he doesn’t know how much longer he can sit here and flirt with John and not do something about it, not reach across the ever-shrinking space between them and crash their mouths together. 

But he wants John to be the one to reach first. He wants this to be John’s decision. He wants to be John’s choice.

“Okay,” John says. “So I’m not a person or an animal. Am I some kind of plant?”

“Nope. Am I tall?”

“Tall enough.” John smirks. “Am I an object then?”

_ Closer _ .  _ Almost on the right track _ .

“Yes. Am I clever?”

“Very. An object. Okay. So. Am I… big?”

_ There’s the question. _

Sherlock rakes his eyes meaningfully down John’s chest, the soft curve of his belly, the slim expanse of his hips, to settle on the vee between his thighs. “I’m not sure,” he says, swallowing thickly. “I haven’t seen it up close myself, but all the evidence points that way.”

It’s the most blatant innuendo he could come up with, a heavily flirtatious answer to the question he knew John would eventually ask. He says it with a smirk, with a laugh in his voice, but inside his nerves are crackling with anxiety, sparking so sharply he thinks he might explode. John has to get it. He has to. Sherlock can’t make it more obvious without just saying it, asking for it, begging John to kiss him.

_ Please _ , he thinks desperately.

He looks up to meet John’s eyes again, and they are blazing. The midnight ocean set aflame.

“Sherlock,” he says, pushing forward in his seat. Closer. Closer. Close enough that Sherlock can feel the heat coming off of him in waves.

But still John falters. Hesitates.

Cautious John, always second-guessing his own observations, unwilling to take the risk where Sherlock is concerned.

_ Give him an excuse _ , Sherlock thinks,  _ give him a nudge _ , and casts around for something to say. Something to ask.

“Am I--” he starts, watching his own reflection in John’s eyes, wreathed in embers, smoldering. 

_ Be bold. Be daring. _

“Am I attractive?”

It’s a lit match--Sherlock holding it up in the middle of the room, holding his breath, waiting, waiting, ready to burn down the walls, the flat, the whole damn world at John’s word.

“God, yes,” John says and surges forward.

His mouth is hot, his breath amber-sweet, and he kisses Sherlock like flames licking up walls and under doors. Like he wants to consume him. 

John kisses him the way Sherlock wants to be kissed. 

It’s brutal and devastating and so spectacular that he could cry. John’s hands are in his hair, on the back of his neck, around his biceps, against his chest, pushing and pulling and desperately scrabbling for something to hold onto, and Sherlock feels unmoored by it. Knocked down by the weight of it, by the heat of it, and still John kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until they’re gasping and shaking and Sherlock finally slips out of his chair, his knees hitting the floor as he seeks John out.

He needs to be closer, to feel John’s heart beat against his chest and under his fingertips. 

He needs more, more of this, more of John.

The change in angle has Sherlock pressing up to meet John’s lips, messy and desperate, and Sherlock doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, not really, just that he needs more.

John pushes back against him, down against him, controlling the kiss, gentling it a little, letting the tension of it unspool into something softer, something almost fragile, with brushing lips and fleeting tongues, something gossamer and sweet and tender.

“Sherlock,” he whispers against the curve of his lower lip, and it sounds like a question, like a wish.

“Yes.” Sherlock answers. “Yes.”

And then John’s hands are at his buttons, plucking at them with renewed fervour, already bearing Sherlock down toward the floor until John is on top of him, straddling his hips, and Sherlock can feel the hardness of him, the heat of him, where their weight presses together.

“Get these undone,” John says, sitting up--”please”--already pulling his jumper over his head, leaving his hair a mess.

Sherlock concentrates on unfastening his shirt and not on how it would feel to run his fingers through John’s hair, to push it back into place, to make a further mess of it, because it feels like he could, like he might be allowed, and that might be enough to break him. 

So he focuses on his buttons while John undoes his own, hasty, with much steadier hands than Sherlock’s own.

“Look at you,” John says, pushing his own shirt off his shoulders.

“Me?” Sherlock responds, still fumbling with the last button that he just can’t seem to fucking undo. “You.” He licks his lips. “You’re-- John, you’re--”

But John bends forward to kiss him then, the words lost in the meeting of their mouths and the soft brush of John’s bare chest against his own.

_ I could do this forever _ , Sherlock thinks. 

But well before then--far, far too soon--John is pulling away again, his hands finding that last button Sherlock still hasn’t managed to slip free. 

“I need to see you. I need to--” 

And finally the button comes loose, and John presses the sides of his shirt wide, exposing his belly and his chest. 

“Christ.”

His eyes rake over Sherlock, cataloguing all the places hard and soft and shaking and steady.

And then his mouth is on Sherlock’s neck, on his chest, his nipples, the trail of auburn hair below his bellybutton, the ridge of his hip where it peeks out above his trousers, and it’s all Sherlock can do to keep breathing, tension already pulling tight and silver-hot in the base of his spine.

“Can I?” John asks, and Sherlock doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, but whatever it is, the answer is  _ yes, god yes, please yes _ , near enough to begging, and he only realises he must have said it aloud when John’s fingers are on the button of his trousers, on his zip, plunging under the fabric of his pants to wrap around his cock. 

And then everything is brilliant, John’s hand curling around him, warm and soft, gentle, just holding, testing, feeling. 

But then he pulls once, firm and quick and not too too tight, and then again, and then again, and then everything is better than brilliant.

It’s amazing, wonderful, spectacular, incredible, un-fucking-believable, and Sherlock’s hands search for something, for anything he can hold onto under the onslaught of sensation, finally finding John’s hips, squeezing them, holding on, shutting his eyes and riding the wave of pleasure that crashes down on him as John strokes and strokes and strokes him until he comes, gasping and shaking and glorious.

“Oh my god,” John breathes. “That was-- God. Sherlock--”

And Sherlock just manages, “You. You now. You,” before John kisses him hard and fast and messy. 

Between them, he can feel John scrabbling at his flies, and he pushes at John’s chest, pushing him off just enough to gasp, “Up. Sit up. I want to see.”

“Yes,” John says, already pushing back, pulling out his cock, flushed and hard, the tip beaded with precome, starting to stroke short and fast and needy.

“Me. Let me,” Sherlock tells him, and John lets him, rocking his hips into Sherlock’s hand where it wraps around him. 

And for a moment, Sherlock can’t think, can’t do anything at all, because this is John. His hand is around John’s cock, and he’s thought for so long that this moment would never--could never--happen that all he can do is watch as John fucks into his fist.

“Sherlock,” John says, and it sounds so much like a moan that the shock of it is enough to bring him back to the present. And finally he starts to move, to stroke, adding a little half twist around the head that makes John whimper, makes him pant open-mouthed, makes Sherlock murmur in encouragement  _ come on, yes, John, yes.  _

It doesn’t take long for the tension build, for it to straighten John’s spine, to line his forehead and the corners of his eyes, to press hard between his lips as he bites them closed. 

But Sherlock wants the sounds he makes, wants to taste the pleasure in them. So he says, “Kiss me,” and John all but collapses on him, their mouths meeting open and panting and hot. Sherlock twists his wrist between them, and John comes with a cry muffled between their lips, a moan that Sherlock swallows down, burying it somewhere he can keep it, hold it, somewhere that time can’t touch.

They lie there breathing against one another, hearts still racing, trading kisses that soften and slow, and Sherlock isn’t sure what comes next, isn’t sure he wants to know, isn’t sure he can face it. If John gets up and leaves now, if he regrets this, if he comes to his senses…

John pushes himself up, his arms bracing either side of Sherlock’s head.  _ This is it. This is when he’ll leave. _

“Well,” John says. “That was… new.” And then he laughs. He laughs and it’s filled with mirth. Not bitterness. Not ridicule. Not even anxiety. But with joy bubbling up from somewhere deep inside.

“Mmm,” Sherlock agrees, unsure how else to respond, not wanting to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, still waiting for the axe to fall.

But John just kisses him again, light and lingering, and then stands and offers him a hand. “Come on. Let’s clean up and go to bed.”

Sherlock can’t make himself say  _ yes _ , afraid to open his mouth lest his voice crack under the surge of emotion he feels at those words, at the thought of John staying, of John in his bed, so he simply nods and lets John pull him to his feet and kiss him again.

When they break apart, John’s eyes go to his forehead, and he chuckles, reaching up to pluck off the paper still stuck to his head. He turns it around to show it to Sherlock, who smiles. “You already knew that, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.” He smirks.

John pulls the paper from his own head then, turning it to look at it and laughs again, boyish and full, and Sherlock feels so light with happiness that he isn’t even sure his feet are still on the floor. 

“Thought you didn’t know anything about the solar system.”

Sherlock bites his lip, his eyes crinkling deeply at the corners as he looks at the paper and then at John.

The sun. Sherlock’s sun. The centre of his own personal solar system. Of his entire bloody universe.

“I learned,” he says, and John stares at him, starry-eyed, wondrous, like he’s a little bit of a miracle.

“Yeah,” he says then, “yeah, let’s go to bed,” and he takes Sherlock’s hand in his and leads them into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr as [hudders-and-hiddles](http://hudders-and-hiddles.tumblr.com).


End file.
